Larkin, Philip Comments on This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were sloppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Lately, I have read a good deal of poems by Philip Larkin, and one unifying factor that I have noticed is that Larkin never seems to use a filler. Every word in every one of his poems seems to be carefully crafted and placed, to the point where the flow and rhythm of the poem seem almost an accident. One poem I read that really stayed with me is the above poem, "This be the Verse." I will now show you how this poem, which at first glance seems to be written only to amuse, really has a much deeper meaning. I will examine the poem in several parts. First, I would like to examine the use of curse words in the poem, or why other words that would be considered more acceptable to the general public were not used. Then, I will discuss the three stanzas of the poem and what they were meant to do for the audience. Lastly, I will explore why Larkin would write such a poem, and what he was trying to get across to his audience by writing it.

The second line in this poem contains the word "fuck," a word that is usually not considered acceptable for the general public. Yet Larkin incorporates it almost immediately into his poem. I can think of four possible reasons why. Firstly, words such as fuck quickly and easily grab the audiences attention. This is similar to yelling "sex" in a crowded marketplace, everyone wants to know what is being discussed. Also, words like fuck prepare the audience for a humorous bit of poetry, and this perks the...

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"They fuck you up, your mum and dad." (ll.1) the first line of this poem comes off very harsh, because it is! Larkin is getting the reader's attention with the first line. Your mom and dad "fuck you up" by giving you insights on how to better yourself and punishing you for the wrong things you have done. "They may not mean to, but they do" (ll.2) Parents don't mean to hurt you, they are trying to mold you into a better person by sharing some of their life experiences with you. M They sometimes comes off as being rude, but really they are being firm and attempting to rub off some of their experience on you. "They fill you with the faults they had" (ll.3) Larkin is basically saying that they share their experience with you because they know that it is very valuable information which can better your life. "And add some extra, just for you" (ll.4) Parents not only use their own experience but also look at their children's life and they try to explain to them what they notice is wrong and how to change that for the better. "But they were fucked up in their turn (ll.5), by fools in old-style hats and coats" (ll.6) Larkin is saying that the parents who try to better you by using their experience were in the same shoes as you when they were children. Mom and dad were once...

...PhilipLarkinPhilipLarkin, is a famous writer in postwar Great Britain, was commonly referred to as "England's other Poet Laureate" until his death in 1985. Indeed, when the position of laureate became vacant in 1984, many poets and critics favored Larkin's appointment, but the shy, provincial author preferred to avoid the limelight.
Larkin achieved acclaim on the strength of an extremely small body of work, just over one hundred pages of poetry in four slender volumes that appeared at almost decade-long intervals. Although Larkin can be cynical and disappointed in tone these qualities are not characteristic of all his poetry. It is more accurate to say he takes a realistic and unromantic approach to life which is evident in his poems. In contrast, all his poetry shows a genuine sensitivity to others, and an awareness and sympathy of their life experiences.
Church going is one of his most cynical poems. Even the title is cynical.” Church going” can mean going to church, or the fact that in his opinion the church is disappearing. 1st line is cynical. Larkin only goes in when nothing is going on, but in his opinion nothing important is ever going on in a church. Shows his disdainful attitude to church with phrases such as " another church" "little books" " some brass and stuff up the holy end" He is disrespectful, uncaring to church. He pronounces " Here endeth" and...

...PhilipLarkin demonstrates the use of “piquant mixture of lyricism and discontent” through his poetic explorations in Here and The Whitsun Weddings. Both pieces were published in 1964 as a collection of poems collectively titled ‘The Whitsun Weddings’. In the poem Here you see both lyricism (expression of emotion in an imaginative and beautiful way) and discontent (dissatisfaction, typically with the prevailing social or political situation) though in The Whitsun Weddings you tend to see more lyricism. In Here this is shown through industrialism and society while in The Whitsun Weddings by marriage and the passage of time.
Here is a moving poem that takes the reader on a visual journey through the countryside, to towns and finally the coast. The opening stanza of Here commences with the word ‘swerving’, which is repeated twice in the same verse, implying that the train is trying to avoid something, for example the irreversible destruction of the surrounding nature. This speculation can be demonstrated by the description of the ‘thin and thistled’ fields; they are no longer flourishing, as their abundance is not the priority. This statement shows the alliteration of t, which gives it, precision.
The first line describes the ramifications of the industrial revolution on society with its ‘rich industrial shadows’. This shows both lyricism and discontent with the adjective...

..."This Be The Verse"
is a lyric poem in three verses of four iambic tetrameter on an alternating rhyme scheme, by the English poet PhilipLarkin (1922–1985). It was written around April 1971, first published in the August 1971 issue of New Humanist, and appeared in the 1974 collection High Windows.
The title also ironically recalls the recurring phrase in the Old Testament threatening the sins of the father against his sons: "for I the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me" [Exodus 20:5]. Larkin parodies the divine threat by rewriting the deliberate retribution of an angry vengeful God as the tragic shortcomings of "your mum and dad" (l. 1). This biblical allusion injects a homiletic quality into the unabashedly profane poem and hints at a certain awareness on Larkin's part that, of all his poems, this one will be the poem his readers will remember.
One of Philip Larkin’s most famous and controversial poems, “This Be The Verse” has become a fixture in poetry anthologies, and the minds of many people who don’t ordinarily read poetry. Whilst it is probably famous for its inflammatory, and very quotable, first line, the poem is far more subtle than a first glance might suggest.
The title “This Be...

...﻿At Grass By PhilipLarkin
Sound Devices & Rhythm
Rhyme:
Regular rhyme pattern: In each stanza, there are rhymes on alternate lines, forming a regular pattern of efgefg, hijhij etc.
Such regularity seems to suggest a sense of restriction which echoes with the confinement human beings impose on the racing horses for the pleasure of human entertainment.
Assonance:
The use of repeated long vowels as in ‘shade’ (/ʃeɪd/), ‘tail’ (/teɪl/), ‘mane’ (/meɪn/) creates a gloomy atmosphere in the depiction of the setting where the once gloried but now anonymous horses are situated in at their age of retirement.
Enjambment & alliteration:
In stanzas 2 and 3, most of the lines end with no punctuation but run onto the subsequent line.
This creates a faster pace and rhythm to suggest the passing of time in stanzas 2 and 3, which recollect the now retired horses once competed for glory under the human gaze on the race track in the past.
The use of alliteration in stanzas 2 and 3, as seen in the use of fricative (fifteen, fable, faint, faded), sibilance (silks, start, sky, squadrons, subside, stop-press, street), etc., also creates a strong sense of continuity which reinforces the passing of time as suggested by the use of run-on lines.
In contrast, in stanza 4 almost every line ends with a punctuation, which contributes to a slower pace and rhythm when back to the present, namely the age of retirement of the horses.
Alliteration &...

...Self's the man
Oh, no one can deny
That Arnold is less selfish than I.
He married a woman to stop her getting away
Now she's there all day,
And the money he gets for wasting his life on work
She takes as her perk
To pay for the kiddies' clobber and the drier
And the electric fire,
And when he finishes supper
Planning to have a read at the evening paper
It's Put a screw in this wall -
He has no time at all,
With the nippers to wheel round the houses
And the hall to paint in his old trousers
And that letter to her mother
Saying Won't you come for the summer.
To compare his life and mine
Makes me feel a swine:
Oh, no one can deny
That Arnold is less selfish than I.
But wait, not do fast:
Is there such a contrast?
He was out for his own ends
Not just pleasing his friends;
And if it was such a mistake,
He still did it for his own sake,
Playing his own game.
So he and I are the same,
Only I'm a better hand
At knowing what I can stand!
Here
Swerving east, from rich industrial shadows
And traffic all night north; swerving through fields
Too thin and thistled to be called meadows,
And now and then a harsh-named halt, that shields
Workmen at dawn; swerving to solitude
Of skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares and pheasants,
And the widening river's slow presence,
The piled gold clouds, the shining gull-marked mud,
Gathers to the surprise of a large town:
Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster...

...﻿“Larkin is a pessimistic rather than optimistic poet” – Discuss
Larkin has been regarded as a pessimistic poet. Larkin surely takes a very dark view of human life. The main emphasis in his poem is on failure and frustration in human life. However Larkin is not a uniformly pessimistic poet. Some of his poems have a profoundly moral character, which expresses itself in the need to control and organize life, rather than submit to a pre-determined pattern of failure. There is generally a debate going on in many of his poems between the positive and the negative aspects of human life. I feel that Larkin can be both a positive and negative poet.
I find the poem "The Trees" to be one of Larkin’s optimistic poems. "The Trees" deals with the reflective descriptions of Larkin’s observation of trees. Despite its misleading superficial simplicity, the poem bears a deeper meaning underneath: the trees that are reborn every year ‘the trees are coming into leaf like something almost being said’ symbolize renewal and hope in the face of the humans who have to face death eventually. Yet, throughout the poem, Larkin ambivalently ponders about this symbolism, as he delightedly views the picture of the growing trees but denies the immortality of their youth as a superficial veneer marked by the inward aging and an eventual death ‘Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die...